Relationships of Face Versus Body in the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Samantha Roach
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Kino: The Western Undergraduate Journal of Film Studies Volume 5 | Issue 1 Article 5 2014 He Looks Mighty Pretty When He Gets Mad: Relationships of Face versus Body in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Samantha Roach Abstract Roach proposes an inventive reconsideration of the film’s two stars, John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart that is premised fervently on post-structural deconstructions of masculinity and the politics of the body. hrough gestural analyses and close attention to the ways in which both men occupy the filmic space, the article establishes a rigorous interpretation of Richard Dyer’s theories of stardom that is premised upon relational aesthetics: of not only its leads’ interactions with each other, but also an ethic of genre-based intertextuality Keywords John Wayne, James Stewart, stardom, western, masculinity Recommended Citation Roach, Samantha (2014) "He Looks Mighty Pretty When He Gets Mad: Relationships of Face versus Body in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," Kino: Th e Western Undergraduate Journal of Film Studies: Vol. 5 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. Roach: He Looks Mighty Pretty When He Gets Mad: Relationships of Face ve John Ford’s 1962 western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance brought together two screen giants for the first time: James Stewart and John Wayne, who portray Ransom ‘Ranse’ Stoddard and Tom Doniphon respectively as two characters on opposite sides of a spectrum. Tom stoically obeys the law of the gun while Ranse fervently believes in the law of the books he studies. The relationship between face and body of the two characters played out on the screen as supported by each actor’s respective intertextual star image as well as shot length and composition creates two different ideas of heroism and masculinity: the confident gunslinger in Doniphon and the passionate underdog in Stoddard. Both of these images crumble with the civilization of the west, which leads to the film’s depressing, unresolved ending. Arguably the dead characters from the beginning of the film include not only Tom Doniphon and Liberty Valence, as a part of Ransom Stoddard appears to have died as well, and this is illustrated by changes in the relationship between his face and body which help add the layers of ambiguity to the film’s close. The relationship between face and body of each character is vital to understanding the ambiguity of the narrative, as these relationships change over the course of the film as each character ‘dies.’ Ransom Stoddard’s impassioned yell of “Nobody fights my battles!” following the confrontation between Liberty and Tom in the restaurant encapsulates his younger self as a character as one with a passion for justice who fights against the lawlessness surrounding him, shown in the conflicted relationship between his own face and body in which the emotion in his face overpowers his weaker frame. J.A. Place notes that Ranse “seems to possess a collapsible body without real strength comparable to that of Liberty or Tom” (218) and many of the shots throughout the film’s extended flashback which feature Ranse’s body in longer shots show him as somehow prone or awkward in his posture. Prominent examples include the shot of him Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2014 1 Kino: The Western Undergraduate Journal of Film Studies, Vol. 5 [2014], Iss. 1, Art. 5 struggling on the ground after being beaten down by Liberty Valence, and again when Liberty trips him in the restaurant, both shots looking down on Ranse from a higher angle. Another shot used often with Ranse is the medium close-up, highlighting his facial expressions which display great levels of emotion, whether it is anger at Liberty Valance or excitement at the prospect of teaching Hallie to read. The shot lengths used with Ransom Stoddard bring us close to view the expressiveness in his face indicating his passion for justice, then take us farther from him to show what Ranse is struggling against, not only the lawlessness of his surroundings but his own lack of physical power. Tom Doniphon’s character is perhaps best encapsulated by his claim that “Liberty Valance is the toughest man south of the picket wire, next to me,” and his confidence and machismo is conveyed in part by a harmony in the relationship between his face and body. Rarely does the camera come as close to Tom as it does to Ranse, with shots of Tom more often featuring his confident posture either from the waist up or with his holster in sight. The few times the audience is brought significantly closer to Tom is when he talks to Hallie, telling her that “she’s awful pretty when she gets mad” but such flirting is then followed by more macho criticism of Ranse’s ways. Another significant medium close-up of Tom occurs during the confrontation between Tom and Liberty when Tom dares Liberty to “just try it” as Liberty turns as if to draw his gun while leaving the restaurant. These two shots bring us close to indicate what Tom cares about, not only Hallie but also the preservation of justice delivered by gunfire, not legislation. Still, Tom’s confidence is rooted heavily in the way he holds his body, and Tom’s downfall is illustrated by not only the destruction of the house but the collapse of his confident form into a drunken stumble, representing a form of spiritual death. 2 Roach: He Looks Mighty Pretty When He Gets Mad: Relationships of Face ve The way these two images of men, that of the passionate underdog and that of the confident gunslinger meet in the frame are important to take note of. Place notes that vertical and horizontal lines in the frame are important for expressing the relationship of Tom and Ranse in the film (218). Throughout the flashback that comprises most of the film, Tom takes dominance over Ranse in the arrangement of various important scenes. When Ranse is first brought to Nora and Peter’s restaurant, he is laid on the bed with Tom in one moment standing over him and then taking over from Hallie in cleaning Ranse’s face. Another example of this is found in the aforementioned confrontation with Liberty and the saloon, in which Tom towers over Ranse who sits sprawled on the ground. In these shots Tom’s strong vertical line of a body towers over Ranse’s fallen horizontal frame. There are only a couple of instances in which Ranse towers over Tom and the difference in the emotional distance between Ranse and the audience is important to note. The first example is when Ranse punches Tom for the trickery Doniphon pulls in teaching Ranse how to shoot, splattering Ranse with paint. Immediately following the shot of Tom flabbergasted on the ground, a medium close-up of Ranse follows, showing the extent of his emotions as he yells at Tom. The punch is an important moment in the film as this follows Tom’s last attempt to lay claim on Hallie, a claim he has already begun to lose and the sequence shows Ranse gradually taking the power from Tom by knocking him down. This moment is in contrast with what we see of Ranse at the end of the film as he stands vertically over Tom’s horizontal coffin. In this instance, we are kept at a distance from Ranse’s face, the emotion and passion that once characterized Ranse having been dulled despite standing at the foot of the man who saved his life. Even when both characters are upright they are established as having different images of masculinity. One of the most interesting scenes to examine in the aspect is the composition of the scene when Tom enters the restaurant. On the right side of the screen is Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2014 3 Kino: The Western Undergraduate Journal of Film Studies, Vol. 5 [2014], Iss. 1, Art. 5 Tom dressed in his finest, full body visible while on the left is Ranse, only visible from the waist up due to his being behind a counter washing dishes in an apron. Hallie stands between them, placing her in the middle of a choice between the classical, physical masculinity that Tom Doniphon represents and the more expressive, emotional masculinity of Ransom Stoddard. Performance signs and star image can be argued to also play into the relationship between face and body of the two characters in Ford’s film as well as shot length, angle and composition. Richard Dyer defines performance signs as including facial expression, voice, gestures, and the posture and movement of the body (480) and while shot length is an important establisher of the relationship between face and body and the resulting masculinity that is conveyed, performance signs should be considered as well. The anger with which Ranse yells at Liberty and Tom for their lawlessness and the tenderness and joy with which he interacts with Hallie in educating her come from not only the audience being brought closer through framing but by Stewart’s own emotional performance. Likewise, Tom Doniphon’s dominant position is highlighted by long shots of his body as well as the American shots but the way John Wayne holds his body is important as well, his sturdy posture and grace of movement putting him in contrast with Stewart’s often more slumped or hunched posture and ambling walk, present even as Ranse marches forward to punch Tom in the face. Dyer notes that “part of the business of studying stars is to establish what [the] recurrent features of performance are and what they signify in terms of the star’s image” (481), and both James Stewart and John Wayne have cultivated intertextual star images that can be seen as feeding the characters of Ranse Stoddard and Tom Doniphon.